Manicure Day

Once again I brushed and brushed and brushed and there's still hair and mud everywhere. One of these days it'll be gone. Went out to the barn early to get the boys cleaned up before the farrier arrived. Both horses behaved themselves for their trim. He tapered Axel's front feet a bit so he doesn't flare out too much. He thought Cody's angles looked good. I could stand to get him x-rayed again though to make sure there's no change or laminitis.

When they were both done I decided to work with Axel for a while. He stood tied in the arena while I puttered around and he was very polite about it. Even with all the other horses in the aisle getting trimmed. He lunged the trot and canter pretty well also. Reluctant to pick up the canter but he had both leads. I got on and we walked for a bit and trotted. In my attempts to get him to collect a bit, wiggling the outside rein, he kept offering a canter. Well in reality I think it was actually just pissing him off and it wasn't a canter but a buck. So we tried a few canters. Went okay but slow to the right. And it was disjointed to the left. The barn owner mentioned it looked pretty rough. And boy was it. Even his trot was jerky and hard to ride. As much as I can figure it's a combination of having deeper footing so he has to pick up his feet more, he's moving out a little more than usual, and he had quite a bit of time off. I couldn't sit his trot to save my life. I was really riding poorly in the grand scheme of things. I'm pretty sure I have a bruise on my knee from smacking it on the saddle. I'm pretty sure that doesn't happen if a person rides properly. Oh well. We got out and moved around a bit and with the exception of a few little bucks things went okay. I'm not sure if Cody called while we were riding and Danny was being trimmed but when I brought Axel back out he was facing away from the gate not looking very concerned.